Inevitable
by EmonyDeborah
Summary: When Kira Nerys was young, she couldn't understand how anyone could risk everything they had left to fight the Cardassians, the Bajorans' seemingly all-powerful oppressors, but then she was suddenly thrust into understanding by a traumatic event in her life. AU, starts during Occupation, will go through to the end of the Dominion War
1. Chapter 1

This chapter is set in the Occupation, when Kira Nerys was twelve years old.

For the first time in a long time, Kira Nerys wasn't miserable. She wasn't happy, either, she couldn't ever remember actually being happy. But at that moment, she was almost content with her life. Though she and every other Bajoran she knew were slaves to cruel oppressors and almost certainly always would be, that morning she had escaped the hard and watchful gaze of her village's Cardassian overseers. She had gone to the forest at the foot of the mountain closest to her village to pick seedberries for her father and brothers. Early that morning, she'd taken the bowl from their stack of dishes to carry her bounty in, and she was very pleased with the amount she had managed to find. It was almost six handfuls, which would certainly sustain her family for three or maybe four days. Seedberries were not easy to pick, due to their unfortunate habit of growing a protective hedge of brambles around themselves several feet thick, but Nerys had persisted for hours, scratching up her face and hands in the process, and only stopped and headed back towards her village when the mountain's shadow had disappeared, telling her it was noon.

The mountain closest to her village was only one of several dozen that made up a range running through Dakhur province. The mountains were a great source of mystery and fascination for Nerys. Her father and the other adults disappeared inside them every day for hours, herded along by the Cardassians, and always came back covered in dust and with terrible coughs. But that was not the mystery that filled Nerys's mind with awe. The mountains had many hiding places, and it was said that they were home to (Nerys glanced around, making sure she was alone with her thoughts) the Shakaar resistance cell, what the Cardassians called 'the curse of Dakhur Province.' Every week, at least, stories were passed around in whispers and behind locked doors of some Cardassian weapons depot the Shakaar had blown up or a village they had brought food and medical supplies to.

Though she secretly admired them for their bravery, Nerys didn't really understand the point of fighting. The Cardassians had been on Bajor for thirty-six years, why bother? She supposed that Resistance members had all lost someone to the mines, or a Cardassian experiment, or starvation. The only person Nerys had lost was her mother, but she barely remembered her, so she wasn't very sad about that. She had her father and two little brothers, and they were all relatively healthy. They were all she needed.

Her father Taban, like all Bajorans, was obligated by the Cardassian government to contribute something to the Cardassian Union. That meant that he had to mine uriduim, which the Cardassians used to build their ships, out of the mountains every day from dawn until far after the first stars had appeared in the sky. When her brothers turned fourteen, they would each join him, first Reon, then Pohl.

For Nerys, it meant that if she grew up to be beautiful she would have to provide 'comfort' to the Cardassian soldiers that managed her village. She didn't know what that meant, all she knew was that it must be something terrible, because tears gathered in her father's eyes any time it was mentioned, and it meant that she would never get to see her family again. A year before, Nerys had watched as a girl named Teran had been dragged out of her house to be a comfort woman. Teran's mother had wailed from the door of their little house, tears streaming down her face, as a young Cardassian soldier with bright, malicious eyes took her daughter away. Teran's father had chased after her, and had attacked the Cardassian soldier holding her possessively. Nerys had looked away then. She didn't like watching people be killed. Teran's mother hadn't been seen since, but Nerys had heard that she had run away to the mountains to join the resistance.

Taban, when he knew people could hear him, called resistance fighters ungrateful miscreants who didn't know a good deal when they saw one. The Cardassians had been a blessing from the Prophets thirty-six years ago, he always argued. The Bajorans had been enlightened to the universe around them, servitude was not much to ask in return. But when Nerys was supposed to be asleep, she often heard him slip out of his bed and pray earnestly to the Prophets, that they would grant them deliverance from the Cardassians through the Resistance. Even though she knew she was supposed to kneel to pray, Nerys stayed in her bed and silently prayed with him.

Nerys stopped in her tracks. A sound not native to the forest was rustling through the trees. It almost sounded like footsteps, and Nerys's mind instantly flew into overdrive. If a Cardassian had seen her outside of the village without permission, her seedberries would be the only food her family would have for the next two weeks. She turned so that anyone in the forest would be unable to see her face and tore off towards her village. It was more than three kilometers distant, but Nerys ran the whole way.

Her family's house was in the bustling center of the village, something Taban hated, but Nerys had always been grateful for. She never had to go very far to pick up their rations, or draw water, or find a Cardassian to beg clothes or dishes off of. Now, though, it wasn't very helpful in being inconspicuous. She knew running through the village in the hottest part of the day was a good way to attract attention, but she didn't care. Home was safe. Being at home was not suspicious. Cardassians didn't look at you too closely if you were in your own house. She bolted inside and slammed the door shut. She leaned against the door and allowed her heart a moment to slow down before she sat and sorted her seedberries into rations, giving herself the smallest portions, and stored them in the cabinet. She didn't like sorting, it always felt as though whatever pile she was sorting through got bigger as she worked on it, and it was made even more difficult by her hands, which, to her frustration, were shaking.

Calm down, you! she mentally demanded. Everything will be ok. The worst we'll get is two weeks without food. Gailis will share his rations, and we've got the seedberries.

Gailis was an old man who the Cardassians considered to frail to work productively in the mines, even though he was still strong. He had been a doctor before the Occupation, but no Bajorans were allowed to practice medicine while under Cardassian rule, so now he was just an herbalist. Villagers went to him for any symptom that wasn't life threatening, since life threatening was all the Cardassians would help with. Gailis was kind and always made Nerys smile. Once, she had even laughed. He always shared food with anyone who asked, no matter how hungry he was. He was the best person Nerys had ever known, besides her father.

"Reon! Pohl!" Nerys was distracted by a scream from outside.

"Gailis?" she said to herself. That had been the old man's voice. For a split-second she wondered what trouble her brothers had gotten into while she was gone, but then it registered in her mind that Gailis had not sounded scolding, as he usually would, but terrified. The bottom dropped out of her stomach and her hands began trembling again, and she thought of the rustling in the forest. Had she been seen out of bounds? Had the Cardassians been bored and decided to go after her little brothers instead of just administering their usual punishment? She stood up on shaky legs and ran as well as she could to the door and pulled it open.

Her house being in the middle of the village, she could usually see out the door almost everything important that happened. At least, she heard every Cardassian announcement very clearly. What she saw now made her feel like dry-heaving.

A crowd was gathering around two small boys and a Cardassian patrol standing in front them. It isn't them, she prayed desperately. Please don't let it be Reon and Pohl. The Prophets, apparently, were not feeling merciful. One of the boys turned slightly to look into the crowd, and Nerys saw his face. Her heart lurched. She stepped forward, intending to demand an explanation from Gailis, who was only a meter away from her, about why her little brothers were being intimidated by a Cardassian patrol. But before she could, the lead Cardassian, Gul Trinn, began speaking in a condescending tone.

"You stole those things, boys. Stealing is a crime. Do you know what we must do to people who commit crimes?" Anger immediately surged through Nerys, giving her strength and a bravery that could be considered stupidity. She ran forward, ready to do whatever she had to to protect her little brothers, but Gailis grabbed her as she attempted to push past him.

She knew better than to think she could overpower Gailis, but that didn't stop her from trying as she screamed, "Leave them alone! Leave them-" The rest of what she said was muffled when Gailis clamped a hand over her mouth. Trinn ignored her and continued as if he hadn't heard anything.

"We have to punish them." Nerys started hyperventilating when she saw the hopeless terror on Reon and Pohl's faces. She kicked Gailis savagely and tried to bite his hand, but he held on. Even through her own panic, Nerys could feel his chest shaking with suppressed sobs. Trinn continued in a louder voice, the voice he frequently used to make announcements to the village. "Kira Reon and Kira Pohl, you are charged with theft, and I sentence you to-"

"We didn't steal them, someone gave them to us!" Reon shouted desperately, his voice high and terrified. Pohl was pressed hard into Reon's side and trembling like a leaf. Trinn ignored Reon and continued to talk without pausing.

"Death," he finished dryly, as though he were dismissing a servant. Nerys screamed incoherently, Gailis's hand was still over her mouth. "Do you have any last words? Perhaps a warning to your fellow villagers about the foolishness of thievery?" Tears were rolling down her brothers' faces, and Nerys was heaving out broken sobs, still trying to escape Gailis's unyielding arms. Many of the villagers were crying, too, but no one spoke. No one noticed when a man not native to their village came out from behind the comfort woman Teran's abandoned house, noticed what was happening, and paled considerably. "Anything? No? Very well," Trinn said in a business-like tone.

"No!" The man yelled. Nerys looked at him, desperate hope rising in her chest. "It was me! I stole-"

"Fire." Nerys didn't have time to close her eyes. The Cardassians behind Gul Trinn whipped out their disruptors and fired them immediately. Less than a second after Trinn gave the order, her brothers were dead, splayed out on the ground, tear tracks on their faces. There was an identical burn mark on each of their chests. At that moment, something inside Nerys died, too.

The man stared at the boys' small bodies, horror and guilt flooding into his eyes. Trinn looked up at the man, unconcerned.

"You say you stole them?" He didn't even bother to pretend he felt any remorse for killing two boys. "How unfortunate." Trinn gestured to his underlings, who aimed their disruptors at the man and fired. Nerys turned and pulled Gailis's coat over her ears, trying to block out the sound of another person dying. But the Cardassians cursed and through Gailis's coat she heard footsteps running up the road. She leaned back slightly and watched the man run away, before wrenching herself from Gailis's now relaxed grip and tearing after the man. Though she was small, she was fast, and she had the advantage of having run up this road hundreds of time in her life. She quickly overtook the Cardassians who were in pursuit and caught up to the man a few minutes later, just inside the forest where only a half-hour ago she had been picking seedberries. He must have heard her behind him, and recognized that she wasn't a Cardassian, because he stopped and turned around. Nerys flew at him, screeching.

"My brothers! They killed my brothers! You did this!" She kicked and punched him ferociously, wanting the man to feel some inkling of the gaping hole of grief and pain in her chest. He didn't fight back. He just let her pound him until her blows began to weaken as she started to break down. He pulled her into a hug that she resisted at first, but eventually fell into.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he murmured into her hair. "I stole those medical kits, I gave some to your brothers." Rage bubbled up inside Nerys, but now it was sharper, more focused.

"They killed my brothers because they thought they stole-!"

"Sh," the man interrupted suddenly, putting a hand up for emphasis. He looked around, listening intently. "You should go home," the man warned her in a low voice. "I have to go." Nerys shook her head, wiping her face.

"Are you with the Resistance?" she asked in a tone that suggested she was not leaving without an answer. The man shushed her and looked around again. Then he nodded. "I want to come with you," Nerys demanded. The man shook his head immediately.

"Go home, girl," he ordered. Nerys scowled, but didn't say anything. The man sneaked away, deeper into the forest, heading towards the mountains. After a moment, he glanced back and startled violently. Nerys was less than a meter away from him, having followed him silently. "I said go home," he said, but he sounded less sure this time.

"No," Nerys answered. "I want to kill Cardassians." The stubborn frown on her face was making her look much younger than she actually was, but she didn't realize it. The man's face fell into deep sadness.

"What about your parents?" he asked gently, and realized his mistake when her face hardened.

"I want to kill Cardassians," she repeated, more insistently this time. The man looked around, listening again. Nerys listened, too, and immediately heard the clumsy footsteps of approaching Cardassians. The man sighed wearily.

"Do you hate them?" he asked. Nerys nodded stubbornly. "I guess that's all you need," he said, as if trying to convince himself. "Come on. Try to keep up." Then he was gone, having disappeared into the shadows of the trees. Nerys, startled, scampered after him, following the sounds of his footsteps.

A/N: Was this sad? Did I rip your heart out of your chest? Because that's what I was going for. Thanks for reading, and please review!


	2. Chapter 2

I picked the wrong two months to randomly become obsessed with everything Addams Family. Sorry this took so long. My beta reader is still being stubborn, so I had to edit this myself again. All mistakes are mine.

Disclaimer: I do not own DS9 or Kira Nerys.

They walked without speaking for hours, first through the forest, then up the mountain. At first, Nerys didn't mind the silence. She was much too busy trying to ignore the crushing grief attempting to swallow her and thinking of painful, humiliating ways to kill Gul Trinn to make any kind of conversation. It took her a long time to realize that tears were streaming down her face and off her cheeks, leaving a trail behind them as they hiked up the mountain. She quickly wiped her face, worried that the man might make her go home if he sensed any weakness in her. She needed a distraction, or else she knew she would eventually break down. So she started asking questions, hoping he would give her something to concentrate on, while trying not to notice that the sunset was Reon's favorite colors, and forcing herself to smack at bugs that Pohl had always told her she mustn't kill, because he said they were too pretty. The man was no help whatsoever. His answers quickly became predictable, and therefore easy to accidentally tune out, because they were all exactly the same.

"You don't need to know that yet." But Nerys kept asking, managing to distract herself by coming up with more questions. The man eventually must have gotten bored or, more likely, annoyed, with her constant chatter, because after about two hours, he started answering her questions before she actually asked them.

"How long-?"

"You don't need to know that yet."

"How many-?"

"You don't need to know that yet."

"What's it like?" Nerys asked quickly, before the man could interrupt. That had become her goal, to beat him at saying a whole sentence, not getting an answer. At that point, they were shuffling sideways on a narrow ledge, and Nerys was watching her feet, not expecting a new response, already thinking of another question. So she was surprised to hear the man stop moving, and she looked up questioningly to see him staring at her.

"What?" he asked, and it was a moment before Nerys understood that he wanted further elaboration.

"Being in the Resistance. What's it like?" Nerys asked slowly, thrown off by this change in proceedings. The man stared at her, his eyes impossible to read. Nerys knew her own confusion was evident on her face, and she quickly fought to mask it, to control her reactions. She supposed that was a good skill to have mastered in the Resistance, the ability to hide your feelings. The man's expression didn't change as all of Nerys's emotions drained from her face.

"Hate," he said suddenly. "Death." Nerys wasn't sure, but in the pause that followed, she thought she could see through his mask that he was arguing with himself. Finally, he said with a strain of hesitancy in his voice, "Forcing light out of darkness." Then he turned and continued shuffling along the ledge. Nerys stared after him, confused, and slowly followed, finally having something to distract her, but not entirely sure if she was grateful.

She didn't ask any more questions. After that, it was only about fifteen more minutes before they reached an opening in the rocks that Nerys could have walked by without realizing was a cave, except the man ducked inside without pausing. For the first time in the several hours since she had run out of her village, Nerys hesitated to follow.

It only looked like a dip in in a black rock at first glance, but Nerys forced her eyes to focus correctly, and was daunted by the black hole yawning out of the rock, threatening to swallow her. Even though she knew it was irrational, since the man obviously knew where he was going, she was afraid that if she went in, she would never be able to get out, and she would be trapped in darkness and loneliness forever. She felt that if she entered the black, daunting hole she would never see light again. Just inside the cave, the man stopped and turned around. It was the first allowance he had made for her during their whole journey. He watched her pensively as she struggled with herself.

"You can go home now. I won't tell anyone," he said suddenly. Nerys snapped her head up to glare at him challengingly. Even if she never saw light again, she reasoned, it would be a fair trade to avenge Reon and Pohl, two lights in her life that the Cardassians had snuffed out.

"My home is gone," she said defiantly. "The Cardassians destroyed it. I won't go back." The man held her gaze for a long moment, as if waiting for her to change her mind. Nerys strode up to him, squashing her nervousness regarding the cave, until she was so close to him they were almost touching. She stretched her small body up to its fullest height, just managing to get the top of her head level with his shoulders. She glared stubbornly at the man, who didn't flinch or move at all. After a moment, finding no inkling of hesitation in her eyes, the man dipped his head very slightly. Then he turned and walked further into the cave. But now he was walking slower, and he allowed Nerys to catch up and walk beside him. Nerys felt a small pinprick of warmth in her chest where her brothers had left a jagged, bleeding hole, almost elated at her first victory. It quickly disappeared, but Nerys wondered at how it had existed at all. She wasn't allowed to be happy, when her two greatest sources of happiness were gone.

She was soon distracted, thankfully, with keeping herself from tripping on the cave's uneven ground as they walked deeper in. Before long, Nerys realized it wasn't just a cave she and the man had ventured into, it was a tunnel. A very long tunnel, also, for though it was nearly straight and light was streaming into the entrance, after a few minutes she barely had enough light to see her own feet. The man didn't seem to be struggling, at least, she could hear his steady footsteps, but Nerys stumbled, her arms stretched out in front of her to make sure she wouldn't run into any walls. After several moments, when the entrance had become a barely discernible white dot behind them, Nerys heard a click. Her eyes had been wide open, but she snapped them shut when light flooded the tunnel. She slowly cracked one eye open, then opened both of them fully, giving herself a moment to get used to it. The man had turned on a flashlight he had been hiding somewhere, and he watched her get her bearings and take in her surroundings. They had reached a fork in the tunnel, and Nerys saw that within five meters both turns curved out of sight.

"Which way do you think we should go?" the man asked suddenly, startling her. Nerys glanced at him questioningly, wondering if she was being tested. There was no emotion in the man's face, as usual, and Nerys turned away from him warily and began to inspect the tunnels. One of them was wider than the other, and had a level ground as far as Nerys could see, which, admittedly, was not very far. The other tunnel seemed far less welcoming, and Nerys suppressed a shudder at the thought of going into it. It was extremely narrow, which wouldn't be a problem for her, but rock jutted down from the ceiling intermittently, low enough that she would get a concussion if she didn't watch where she was going. She walked down both of them about a meter, and came back to the center when she had confirmed that they both stayed the same, one safe and wide, the other narrow and dangerous.

Nerys frowned, looking back and forth between her two options. She glanced at the man again, but he just stared back at her impassively. Why was he doing this? Why did it matter which way she thought they should go? Her face darkened. He was trying to scare her, trying to make her see what life she was choosing. She glared at him defiantly, and pointed to the narrow tunnel, with one hand, and clenched the other into a fist to stop it from shaking. The man's eyebrows twitched up slightly, more in response to her suddenly murderous gaze than to her choice.

"Why?" he asked politely, and Nerys huffed at his relaxed manner, and quickly tried to think of a good answer that wasn't, "Because I want to, all right? So just deal with it." She analyzed the tunnel she had chosen, this time trying to look at it from a Resistance fighter's perspective. She couldn't imagine it, not really, but as she was struggling to think from a place she had never been, a brief thought whispered through her mind, and she blinked at her own sudden understanding. A Cardassian wouldn't fit down that tunnel, not in full armor, anyway.

"Cardassians can't follow us down that tunnel," she said with certainty. This time, a corner of the man's mouth lifted the smallest bit, and before he shut down his face again, Nerys could have sworn he looked impressed. His emotions firmly locked away, the man handed her the flashlight and stood back without another word. Nerys understood. She had made her choice, now, would she follow up on it? Nerys walked forward determinedly, past the wide, flat tunnel, and squeezed into the narrow, treacherous one. She had to enter sideways, ducking, stretching the flashlight as far in front of her as she could while still having light to watch her feet. She heard the man follow her, but she didn't have enough room to turn her head and look at him. It took them a long time to cover a rather short distance, and Nerys got stuck in one particularly narrow and twisted spot. The man offered no assistance, and she didn't ask for any.

It took her only a few moments to wiggle through, but she made sure she left her head facing backwards to watch how the man got past the tight spot, and to give him light if he needed. But, to her surprise, the man didn't pause on his way through the difficult area. Instead he slipped through without hesitating, twisting his body in a way Nerys hadn't known was possible. When he was through, she quickly forced her head to turn in the small space and kept going. Finally, they came to another fork in the tunnel. Unfortunately, both of the new tunnels were just as narrow as the one they were already in. Nerys grimaced and managed to glance back at the man. He stopped just behind her and didn't say anything, he just stared at her with a blankness that was quickly becoming familiar to her, waiting for her to make a decision. Nerys looked back and forth between her new options, nervousness growing inside her. This was no longer a matter of strategy, and she hated to guess, even though her instincts were usually correct.

Suddenly, Nerys heard a sound that was not her own breathing, which had been rather loud in her ears since entering the narrow tunnel. It was a woman's voice, but Nerys couldn't tell what she was saying because of how intensely the sound was reverberating off the walls. She looked back at the man, flummoxed, only to see that he had finally allowed a full grin to grace his features.

"Someone's upset," he murmured to himself. Apparently he recognized the voice, which Nerys took as a good sign. She squeezed down both of the tunnels a few meters, and continued when the voice got louder and more coherent as she walked down one. Soon a pinprick of light became visible at the end of the tunnel, and as it got bigger, Nerys turned off the flashlight so she could approach somewhat stealthily. She paused at the end so she could look out without being seen. She was looking into a large cave, lit up by several lanterns settled on shelf-like formations in the walls. There were several people flitting around the sides, going into and coming out of several other tunnels branching off of the cave. Nerys could see the woman who was apparently the source of the voice she had followed there. She was standing in the middle of the cave, and she was angry. Her bushy red hair was free and flying everywhere as she gestured wildly at some poor person, whose back was to Nerys, and who was cowering in front of her.

"What were you thinking? Have you gone insane? I don't care how pretty she was, you can't just stop to _chat_ on the way to a raid! Without you on the left flank, we were forced to retreat before we were able to seize any supplies from the convoy!" Next to the angry woman, a large man was clearly struggling to contain his laughter, and his shoulders were shaking with the force of it.

"No more raids for you, sir, not for a long time!" the woman continued. "Now go clean the disruptors."

"Which ones?" the boy in front of her asked timidly. The woman only glared menacingly. The boy evidently got the message, because he scampered off down one of the other tunnels without another word. The woman took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment, before opening them and looking at the large man next to her. He was grinning, seemingly no longer able to hide it. The woman rolled her eyes and smacked him playfully on the shoulder. Then she strode off to some other part of the cave, the large man following her, and, in doing so, left Nerys's field of vision. Almost without realizing it, Nerys leaned farther out of her tunnel so she could continue watching the woman, and only realized her mistake when she felt a large hand latch onto her shoulder. She was dragged out of he tunnel, and instinctively, she fought to free herself, scratching and kicking at whoever was holding her, but she had no effect on him. He was a big man, taller than her father, and he smelled like he hadn't bathed or washed his clothes in weeks. She was dimly aware that the man who had brought her here had slipped out of the tunnel behind her, but she didn't think to ask him for help. She suddenly froze when the man holding her spoke in a low, rough voice.

"What have we here?"

A/N: I am excited to meet Lupaza, Furel, and Shakaar soon. Thanks for reading, please review!


	3. Chapter 3

Hello again! This took a while, but I like this chapter more than I expected to.

Disclaimer: I don't own DS9, Bajorans, Cardassians, or Kira Nerys.

"Well hello there, little birdie. Akrem, what sort of runt did you bring us?" the new man said with contempt.

Most in Nerys's village had known not to mess with her, because she had an explosive temper, and little as she might be, she was like other Bajoran children in the respect that she had learned how to take care of herself at an early age. Nerys was comfortable in her role of being a ticking bomb, because it usually kept her safe, along with her brothers, who were less adept at defending themselves.

Nerys had never fought anyone as big as this man before, and under normal circumstances wouldn't be stupid enough to, but these were not normal circumstances. She had lost her brothers, the two most important people in her existence, and this big man had just snapped the last strings of her self-control, which had been under tremendous strain keeping her from bursting into tears, by _daring_ to underestimate her. She fought against him with renewed vigor, and managed to kick his knee in exactly the right spot. He buckled, and she twisted out of his grip as he fell. She leaped to his side and wrapped her arm around his neck. Now, he was scratching at her, trying to fight her off, and Nerys felt a sort of perverse pleasure at the thought that she had managed to show him exactly what sort of _runt_ she was. The man, Akrem, approached them, and Nerys tensed, prepared for him to attack her.

Instead, Akrem grinned down at the man Nerys was holding and said, "Does that answer your question, Latha?"

"All right, all right," Latha wheezed. "I get it." Akrem looked up at Nerys expectantly, and after a moment she begrudgingly let go of her captive. She stood up and backed away to a relatively safe distance, closer to the tunnel Latha had pulled her out of. She wanted to be ready to escape if she had to.

Akrem didn't seem to notice how tense she was as he turned to Latha and said, "Latha Mabrin, this is-" He stopped and blinked. "Prophets," he said to himself. He looked at Nerys. "Who are you, girl?"

"I'm Kira Nerys," she answered, still wary, and confused by the change that had come over Akrem since entering the cave. Before he had been nearly silent and had had a look on his face that suggested he was making a list of every horrible thing he'd ever seen anyone do. And that was only when he'd been showing any sort of emotion at all. Now, he was smiling easily, his face open and honest.

"Kira Nerys," he said, nodding to her, "this is Latha Mabrin." Nerys didn't say anything, and neither did Latha, but Akrem seemed to expect something from them.

"Hello," Nerys finally said slowly, glancing at Latha before looking back at Akrem. Akrem seemed unaware of her confusion, and he turned to Latha, his eyebrows raised.

Latha looked at him incredulously for a moment, before huffing and saying, "Hello." Akrem grinned, apparently satisfied, and Nerys breathed a sigh of relief. She stared after him as he hustled away to find some more people for her to meet. She only remembered Latha when he grunted, and she slowly turned to look up at him.

"Why are you staring at him?" he asked gruffly. Nerys didn't answer right away. Instead, she looked at him for a moment, weighing him up, trying to predict how he would react to her response.

"He's smiling," she finally said. Latha's eyebrows twitched up slightly. "On the way here, he didn't. Not until we heard the angry woman yelling."

"Angry woman? I hope you mean me." Nerys jumped and instantly raised her hands into a defensive position. Akrem was back, and there were three other people with him. One of them was the angry woman. She was the one who had spoken, and she was grinning at Nerys's defensive posture. The other two were men. Nerys recognized the tall one next to the woman, he had been next to her earlier, too, laughing. Even though they seemed friendly enough, Nerys kept her hands up, and the last man was the reason why. He was scrutinizing her intently, as though he was looking for weaknesses. The woman noticed Nerys wasn't relaxing or even looking at anyone but the last man, and she smacked him in the chest.

"Stop it, Shakaar. Look at her, she's just a kid. We don't need to send her to the front lines yet. She can run errands." Nerys scowled. She hated when adults talked about her like she was a toddler, unaware of the consequences of her actions. She straightened up and was about to tell the woman something along those lines when Latha spoke up out of nowhere.

"Don't underestimate this one, Lupaza. She can hold her own." Akrem snickered, and the others looked at him questioningly, but he didn't explain.

"How long are we going to talk about her and not to her?" the laughing man asked jokingly. "Hello," he continued. "I'm Furel. This,-" He gestured to the woman, who looked somewhat sheepish. "-is Lupaza. And this is our leader, Shakaar." He pointed to him, and Shakaar nodded. Nerys didn't say anything, she just glanced around at all of them. But she did relax slightly.

When Akrem realized that that was the entire reaction they were going to get, he looked at Lupaza and said, "This is Kira Nerys." Lupaza's head immediately snapped around and she stared at Nerys with new interest, her eyebrows furrowed.

"Kira? Not Taban's little girl?" Any irritation Nerys might have felt upon being called little was swiftly forgotten to be replaced with confusion that one of these people knew her father.

"How do you know my father?" Lupaza's eyes widened in alarm.

"What are you doing here? How could you leave your father and your brothers? They need their daughter and sister more than we need some young scrap of a girl!" Nerys's face darkened when Lupaza mentioned her brothers, but she didn't seem to notice. Akrem, whose smile had disappeared, tried to cut in.

"Lupaza-"

"You're going home, right now, how could you abandon-?"

"I did not!" Nerys screamed. She tried to lunge at Lupaza, but Latha grabbed her. Even though she had beaten him before, Latha managed to hold on this time as she flailed and kicked and screamed. Lupaza broke off her tirade immediately, and glanced at Furel, sensing that she had touched some forbidden nerve. Through her anger and her tears, Nerys saw Akrem whisper something urgently in Lupaza's ear, and saw Lupaza pale considerably.

"Calm down, Nerys," Latha growled behind her. He pressed his chest against her back and took deliberate, long, slow breaths. Without meaning to, Nerys found her own breathing slowing to match his. After a moment, she stopped struggling, and Latha let go of her. Lupaza was chewing on her bottom lip, obviously very uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, her voice hoarse. Nerys sniffed once and quickly wiped her face.

"How do you know my father?" she asked again.

"I used to live in your village. I left a year ago." Nerys frowned and tilted her head slightly.

"You're Teran's mother?" she asked with disbelief. Lupaza's features tightened, and she nodded once. Furel put his arm around her and squeezed, something that Nerys noticed and filed away. She looked up and down at Lupaza, trying to reconcile this Resistance fighter with Teran's reserved mother. Nerys hadn't known Teran or her family very well, but she remembered not thinking much of her mother. That Lupaza had been quiet, and always looked like she wanted to shrink and curl into herself. Her hair had always been tied back in a tight braid, and Nerys had never heard her speak. She had never looked up at any Cardassian that Nerys had seen.

This Lupaza's shoulders were back, and her hair was loose. It looked like a cloud of red, it was so bushy.

"You look different," she said simply, unable to think of anything else. "I've never seen you with your hair down." Lupaza smiled, apparently forcing her painful memories away.

"It's difficult to make such a tight braid with so much hair and no brush," she answered lightly. Furel cleared his throat and looked pointedly at Shakaar and Akrem, who both looked very confused. Nerys looked behind her for Latha, but he was gone. She looked around frantically and spotted him at the other end of the cave, ruffling around in some nondescript container. Nerys grimaced in annoyance. She should have noticed him leave. Akrem, Shakaar, Furel, and Lupaza didn't seem to mind.

"Anyway," Furel said, clearly eager to divert to conversation from hair care. "Welcome to the Resistance." Nerys blinked, taken aback. That seemed too easy. She looked at Shakaar for confirmation. He hadn't said anything the whole time. She wondered if that's how he usually filtered his new recruits, by watching silently as they interacted with others in his cell. Or maybe he was just quiet and didn't talk much anyway.

He nodded.

"Welcome."

A/N: Please review, thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

" _Nerys! Why did you leave us? Why didn't you do anything?" Nerys ran towards the voices, but she couldn't get any closer. Hands were grabbing at her from every side, some gently, some roughly, and no matter how hard she fought and no matter how many hands she smacked away there were always more, reaching, clawing, grasping. They dragged her away from the voices, which were growing louder and more desperate._

" _Why did you let us die?"_

Nerys jerked awake, struggling to fill her lungs with shallow gasps. The sand around her sleeping area had been disturbed, and she knew she must have been thrashing around as she slept. She glanced around quickly, but no one was looking at her, and she allowed herself a small sigh of relief.

Lupaza had been watching her like a hawk since Shakaar had let her join, and making sure to keep her from any situation that involved even the smallest amount of risk. Nerys suspected that Lupaza wanted her to go home, so she had been trying to keep her from seeing any signs of weakness, which meant she kept quite a lot from the woman. Though she was getting better at hiding it every day, Nerys was barely keeping herself together, and sometimes she felt like she had to hit something or she would explode. But somehow, she was managing to keep her emotions in a fragile balance, her fury and sadness kept at bay by constant activity.

Her days were spent cleaning disruptors, running messages, and learning how to prepare meals for a dozen people who came and went at all hours and were always hungry. A woman named Tendara disappeared into the tunnels most days and came back with all sorts of plants and berries. She was teaching Nerys their names and how to recognize them in nature, which ones went best in stew and which ones were better on their own. She was also slowly starting to teach Nerys how to find her way through the tunnels, and Nerys already had the routes between some of the larger caves memorized.

Nerys liked Tendara, more than she had expected to like anyone in this group of outlaws, but the most bearable parts of her days were spent with Furel.

Furel was always grinning, and sometimes he almost managed to get Nerys to smile, too. She felt safe with him, but not patronized, the way she felt with almost everyone else. He had been the one to teach her how to clean and repair disruptors, and he usually stopped and sat with her while she was making stew or performing some of her other duties. He always came with a new joke or riddle, and he always pretended to be greatly offended when she never laughed. She knew he didn't mind, though.

The only downside of time with Furel was that time with Furel usually meant time with Lupaza, and Lupaza was the only reminder of her old life that remained, except for her nightmares. It was hard, sometimes, when she was with Lupaza, not to think about her father, or Gailis, or any others of the people she had grown up with. But she was learning to be okay with Lupaza, even if she was annoyingly protective and made it harder to forget her past. Besides, it was always better to be with both Lupaza and Furel at the same time than be alone with one of them. Left to their own devices, Lupaza had a tendency to make everyone in a ten-foot radius remember that they are going to die someday, and Furel's stupid jokes got very exasperating. Furel got her to not be so dour all the time, and Lupaza got him to shut up sometimes. Their relationship had been the most surprising part of joining the Resistance, for Nerys. She hadn't expected to find anything resembling any part of a normal life in the mountains, but somehow Lupaza and Furel were very much like several of the couples in the village. They argued sometimes (Lupaza normally won), but they ate together, slept together, and worked together, and Nerys could tell that they were deathly afraid of losing each other.

The only thing in the Shakaar cell resembling the feelings Lupaza and Furel had for each other were the feelings Shakaar seemed to have for all of his people. It was completely different, of course, Shakaar wasn't in love with them, but that same fear of loss was there. Nerys could see it in his eyes every time he ordered anyone out on a raid, hear it in the strain in his voice every time he asked Boran, the cell's medic, how bad someone's injury was. He cared for all of them, and Nerys was slightly apprehensive of seeing his reaction when somebody died.

Nobody had, yet, since Nerys had joined, but she knew that some would, eventually, and she was dreading it.

Six weeks had passed, Nerys thought with a start, but already losing one of these people had become one of her worst fears, too. She was distracted from her disarming realization when Shakaar came into view outside of her little sleeping nook. There were several others with him, including Lupaza and Furel, and they all seemed to be arguing about something. Nerys crawled out of her nook and stood up slowly, trying and succeeding to remain unnoticed.

"We'll be fine, do we really need a sixth person? The five of us can destroy one transport." That was Latha, but he seemed to be alone in his conviction. The others all gave him the same withering look, and he scowled. "I still don't understand why Tendara or Akrem can't come."

"That's because you're refusing to understand," Lupaza retorted, sounding frustrated. Obviously Latha had already brought this up. "You know Akrem has to meet with one of his contacts, and Tendara is going with Boran to help restock his supply of medicinal herbs. Those things are too important to bail out of to go on a simple raid."

"If it's so 'simple,' why-"

"Enough." Shakaar was a quiet man, but even so his voice was strong with authority. "We need a sixth. Mobara," The last person in the group, the young man Lupaza had been yelling at the first time Nerys had seen her, snapped to attention. "I know Klin and Ornak aren't supposed to be back for two more hours, but go look down the Sanat tunnel and see if they are anywhere close." Mobara nodded and was about to stride away when Nerys finally spoke and made her presence known.

"I can go." The silence was complete and deafening. Five pairs of eyes snapped onto Nerys and stared at her, all of them caught between incredulity and horror, but Nerys only looked at Lupaza, knowing that if anyone was going to object, it was going to be her.

Lupaza's face had gone completely white, and her mouth was opening and closing, but no sound was coming out. "You need another person, don't you? I can go." She tried to keep her voice level and her face free of emotion as Lupaza's eyes darted over her face. She clenched her hands to keep them from shaking and stared resolutely back into Lupaza's eyes. After a moment, Lupaza closed her mouth and swallowed, and she looked at Shakaar for his decision. Furel looked between Lupaza and Nerys, sensing some sort of change in the tension between them.

"Yeah, a person, Nerys, not a shrimp." A half-grin twitched at the corners of his mouth as he glanced around at the others, expecting laughter. But Lupaza surprised them all when she punched him, hard, in the shoulder and gave him a glare before glancing down at Nerys.

"She's not a shrimp, she's a member of the Resistance. And she has the heart of a sinoraptor," she said, looking up at Shakaar again.

Shakaar didn't say anything for a few long moments. He just stared at Nerys, his dark eyes boring into hers. He was worried for her, but Nerys could also tell that he was unwilling to put his team at risk by leaving them a man short. Nerys wanted to look away, to break eye contact, but she kept her nerve and stared right back, silently daring Shakaar to say no.

"She's big enough," he finally said with a small, knowing smile, as he broke eye contact to look around at the group. "She can handle a disruptor rifle." Nerys released a deep breath she hadn't known she was holding. "Get your gear," Shakaar said to the entire group, including Nerys. They all nodded and obeyed.

Nerys had been watching the same square of ground for what felt like hours, and her hands were starting to shake from the cold. She bit her fingers to keep the blood flowing, hoping no one had noticed, not looking away from the spot Furel had said a cardassian skimmer would be landing tonight.

No one in the party had spoken since leaving the tunnel, instead opting to follow Shakaar in silence. Nerys had stayed close to Lupaza and Furel, trying not to gape at all the trees or breathe the fresh air to deeply. She hadn't been outside the mountains since Akrem had led her in, and she had almost forgotten what it felt like to not always be surrounded by stone. But she had forced herself to stay focused and had kept her eyes on Shakaar's back.

When they had stopped and gotten ready for their attack, the sun had been setting, but now the moon was high in the sky, illuminating the clearing as Nerys finally heard the hum of an engine approaching. The others shifted around her, lining up their disruptors and flicking off the safeties. Nerys hurried to copy them, glancing at her power cell to make sure it was fully charged. After what seemed like a long time, the skimmer finally came into view and set down in the clearing, exactly like Furel had said it would. Nerys took a deep, shuddering breath, suddenly feeling very close to panicking. She was about to kill people. People were going to die because of her.

Not people, she reminded herself fiercely. Cardassians. For the first time in six weeks, Nerys willingly let herself remember her brothers, and what the cardassians had done to them. She called back the anger and thirst for revenge and let it rise in her, filling her completely and wiping any other thought from her mind. When the hatch on the skimmer finally opened, she didn't hesitate.

Nerys started firing at random, not bothering to aim at any specific cardassian soldiers, barely aware of the rest of the group around her, shooting more precisely, but all of them with the same savage, angry look on their faces. Nerys fired and fired until the power cell on her disruptor was completely empty, and even then she kept pulling on the trigger, lost in her fury. She only stopped when the last cardassian dropped and the skimmer was a smoldering heap of metal.

After a signal from Shakaar that Nerys almost missed, it was so subtle, the others stood up and started walking down towards the wreckage, looking for parts or weapons to scavenge. Nerys hesitated at the top of the hill, unsure of what she should do, until Lupaza yelled up to her, "What are you doing? Get down here!" Nerys grinned and scampered down to join them in picking through the debris. "Check the bodies for weapons and scanners, and anything else we could use," Lupaza told her, and Nerys hurried to obey.

She had seen dead bajoran bodies before, but she had never seen dead cardassians. Their bodies, lifeless and broken before her, gave her a sort of perverse pleasure, and she smiled savagely as she began her task.

"Stop smiling," Furel grunted from the wreckage of the skimmer. "It makes you look younger." Nerys tried, but she couldn't help grinning. She was one of them, she finally belonged, even Lupaza had admitted it.

She was part of the Resistance.

A/N: Wow this took a long time to write. Thanks for reading, please leave a review!


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